pet peeve: "reduced to feminism"

[pocochina]

Since I’ve been having some more time* to read reviews, discussion, and meta of shows I love, and since I nearly exclusively enjoy shows that have strong, interesting female characters and at least some awareness of feminist politics as a part of their high-quality storytelling, this has naturally resulted in my reading discussions of shows

Comments

[bluemage55]

Disclaimer: XY here, so I'm treading carefully to avoid exercising privelege.

Are you familiar with the Author Tract trope? If a blatant offender of delivers an environmental message, would it be a fair to say that it might be "all about environmentalism"? How about a feminist message?

I think there probably are stories that can be reduced to a primary message. For example, Jack Chick's tracts are blatantly reducible to an Evangelical message.

The problem, though, is that a lot of men (and women too), including the aformentioned ones who self-describe as femiinst, aren't as knowledgeable with or sympathetic to feminism as they think they are. Accordingly, some Feminism 101 concepts are going to strike them as extreme/radical/anvilicious, and overshadow the rest of the character/storyline in their minds. Then we *headdesk* when they praise some things for "not being reduced to feminism", as this really translates to "I think a lot of feminist characters/storylines are reduced to just that".

Yes, that is a euphemism for “my life

[pocochina]

"All about" I don't have a problems with - of course sometimes there's a single general message to a body of work, and that's fine to point out. I've no issue with someone saying Twilight is all about the Mormon allegory. (These are mostly reviews of Joss shows I'm referring to, though, so "all about, nothing else, no exceptions" is, haha, unlikely.) It's the minimizing language of "reduced to" that's a problem, especially when it's applied to characters, as it plays both into the idea of female characters as "less than" and of feminism as something bad. That's what grates.

*cuddles penguins*

*loses an earlobe*

[bluemage55]

Twilight is all about the Mormon allegory.

Rofl. I'd heard something of the sort, but never read something so hilarious about it.

It's the minimizing language of "reduced to" that's a problem, especially when it's applied to characters, as it plays both into the idea of female characters as "less than" and of feminism as something bad. That's what grates.

Makes sense. Thank you for explaining.

*loses an earlobe*

*smacks the bad penguins*

*sheepishly hands back earlobe*

[pocochina]

*sheepishly hands back earlobe*

Hee! *pages Dr. Tam*